Cheap Laughs: Tinder Live, Craigslist Porn, and the Wonderful World of Boning

February 11, 2015

Bunny Buxom flaunts her assets this Friday on "And I Am Not Lying" at UCBeast.Morgan Shortell

This week in Cheap Laughs, we have right swipes, Game of Thrones pipes, boner types, and a thousand bad ideas that were just too terrible, even for TV. Here’s our rundown of the best in independently produced New York comedy this week.

Cast members of the lady prison show Orange Is the New Black are the guests of honor tonight at this gonzo romance extravaganza. Host Lane Moore fires up her Tinder account live onstage and lets audience members help choose who to swipe and what to say to them. On occasion, the objects of the crowd’s affection have even been persuaded to come down to the show in person and see if sparks fly. It’s a ridiculously good time and restores your faith in digital hook-up culture.

Thursday, February 12

Your Love, Our Musical
The PIT, 8 p.m., $15

Musical improvisers Rebecca Vigil and Evan Kaufman are a couple of nosy so-and-so’s. But it’s all for the sake of making up a brand-new, personalized musical on the spot at the PIT. They interview a real couple in the audience for details on how the two met and fell for each other. Minutes later they use those details to create a completely improvised musical about the couple’s love story. Bring your significant other and maybe a tape recorder. You may just come home with a Rodgers & Hammerstein masterpiece saluting the enduring power of your own relationship.

Once upon a time, comedian Kyle Ayers was drunk. He decided it might be funny to tell Craigslist he was a big-shot porn director seeking the next great adult screenwriter in order to solicit submissions. His inbox exploded with amateur porn scripts, so he gathered his comedian friends to perform the scripts live, and thus a great live comedy experience was born. Each show has a theme: Previous editions have included parodies of Seinfeld, 24, and Mad Men, but this month, it’s the dirty daddy of them all: Game of Thrones. Bring your chainmail and your leather dildo. This show will get medieval on your ass.

Side Ponytail
Bar Matchless, 9 p.m., $5

If you’re single and in the Greenpoint area, you need to find Valentine’s Day company. And quick. And what better place to find it than former motorcycle repair shop turned hook-up bar Matchless? Host Carolyn Busa has arranged a sensual comedy show starring sexy comic luminaries Matteo Lane and Sabrina Jalees. And afterwards, DJs recruited from the band Earth Program play the garage tunes to get everybody grinding.

And I Am Not Lying
UCBeast, 11.59 p.m., $5

You can literally whip Valentine’s into shape with this eye-popping variety program from East Village impresario Jeff Simmermon. His special guest Chris McDaniel performs a full bullwhip and lasso routine live onstage (think Indiana Jones, but drunker). Joining this potential lawsuit of a show are comedians Aparna Nancherla and Alison Leiby, plus the ample charms of burlesque professionals Fem Appeal and Bunny Buxom.

This professional sex educator and comic Lux Alptraum will take you on a tour of classic sex ed videos, where some of America’s best community theater actors teach our nation’s youth all about puberty, sexual health, and what’s happening down at the STD clinic. Comics Sharron Paul and Brendan McLaughlin will be on hand to yell silly things at the screen. And if you’re frisky afterwards? Stick around for Love Bites, a power-ballad sing-along in the same venue.

Sunday, February 15

Mike Recine’s Sunday Sauce
The Stand, 8 p.m., $10

New Jersey’s Mike Recine is a great comic, but potentially an even better sauce manufacturer. This Italian gourmand makes some of the city’s finest marinara sauce in his underground guido cave, and shares it with his friends at The Stand comedy club. Audience members have a choice: Either pay for a regular ticket, or buy a jar of sauce and get in free. We go sauce, every time.

Monday, February 16

CUBE: We’re Not a Cult
Muchmore’s, 9 p.m., Free

This local comic variety show presents human puppy Will Winner, decorated veteran Evan Williams, and a host of other hilarious Brooklyn comedians. The show closes out with visiting disco punk band ROBO JAMZ. They’re visiting from space.

Tuesday, February 17

Not Suitable for Television
Littlefield, 8 p.m., $5

Let’s be honest: Nothing is funnier than failure. And this is an evening of things written for TV that spectacularly failed to make it on air. Host Aaron Glaser presents a feast of things too awful even for the boob tube, featuring jokes that didn’t make it past censors, sketches cut for time, pitches gone awry, and just some really, really bad ideas. The evening features stuff from Jon Glaser (Girls, Delocated) and writers for the Tonight Show, The Daily Show, and many more.

Cartoon Monsoon
Over the Eight, 8 p.m., Free

This is a love letter to beloved shows like Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Lamb Chop’s Play-Along. Comedians Joe Rumrill and Mary Houlihan invite you to a cavalcade of original costumed characters, animations, and sketches from both real humans and puppet people. If you loved Pee Wee, there is only one place to be this Tuesday night. And if you didn’t love Pee Wee, there’s only one place to be masturbating quietly in the dark.